Talk:Sawamura Eijun/@comment-204.14.239.107-20160203193036/@comment-204.14.239.82-20160211184216
I'm not going to talk about who is a better pitcher because that is decided by how you define a good pitcher but I will talk about some of the other topics. Mei, Eijun, and Furuya are all selfish egotists that don’t want to give up the mound, but that is pretty common for a pitcher. But their egos are driven by different negative traits. Mei is arrogant, believing he knows best and can’t lose. Eijun is immature, believing everything is about him (his crying when Chris didn’t get picked, his rather insensitive actions towards losing teams, and his constant yelling that he needs to be out there to save the game). Finally Furuya is insecure, believing if he isn’t the ace and on the mound he is useless (we’ll talk more about this further down). I think all of this is exacerbated by the fact that the coaches never let them leave the mound on a positive note. They are always removed after they have screwed up, so every time they go to pitch, they remember the last time they did and it was a failure. Furuya and Tanba being the worst with this, since the coach always leaves them out there until they screw up, rather than letting them end on a positive note. Psychologically, that is really damaging to someone because the last experience is always negative, leading to anxiety about performance. Imagine if every time you went driving, the drive ended with you getting in an accident. How confident would you be in your ability to drive? The three cope with it differently. Mei puts on a lot of bravado, shaking off his catcher’s signs and, “you can’t lose if I am here!” Eijun becomes loud and obnoxious, offering pointless advice and trying to get attention, while Furuya shuts down and stresses himself out. Of the three, Furuya’s problem is the hardest to fix, because you can break someone of arrogance and people grow up and learn but you can’t make someone understand their worth until they are ready. As for how the story will progress, your guess is as good as mine. I am convinced that Eijun will end up being the Ace eventually but how that happens, who knows. My gut tells me they will either physically remove Furuya with an injury or he will have a mental breakdown, just around the time that Eijun develops some new pitch that no one can hit so he can be the hero. Or they will find a way to make have Eijun overcome the difference in physical size and aptitude that is probably unrealistic. Both of those endings are contrite and boring to me because they have all been done. One of those is the plot of pretty much every sports movie, story, and anime out there. The only difference is whether the rival is internal or external to the team. The only other way I can see it ending is that after Miyuki graduates, the new catchers can’t work as well with him and they will have to bench him (contrary to some comments, unless it is a wild pitch, if a catcher misses, it is the catcher’s error not the pitcher’s. Pitchers aren’t expected to change their strike out pitches to suit the catcher. It is the other way around). They have shown that he has issues working with catchers other than Miyuki (Ono and his catcher from junior high) but Eijun doesn’t have those same problems. So there is a chance that Eijun will form a battery with one of the 1st years and become a better pair than Furuya and his new catcher. The key to a good defense is a battery, not just a good pitcher or catcher, they have to be able to work together and complement each other, which Furuya and Miyuki do very well. Think about how much better Tanba pitched to Miyauchi than Miyuki or how much better Mei was with Harada. There is a chance that losing Miyuki (the reason he came to Seido) will destroy Furuya, leading to the aforementioned breakdown. To be fair though, I’ll still read it to the end because I’m a glutton for punishment. As I said before, if I were writing it, one there would be more Haruichi, and two Eijun wouldn’t become the ace. I would write him as the Captain and keep Furuya as the ace. In a way, the captain is more important than the ace because the captain leads the team on and off the field. Think about what happened to Inashiro after Harada left. Yes they still had all their star players, but they fell apart without a strong leader to keep them in check, even with their ace pitcher. Furuya isn’t captain material, not even by a long shot. He is too quiet, self contained, and too much of an air head/blithering idiot to be a good leader. Even as the ace, he isn’t leading the team, Miyuki is. He gives courage and calm to his team through his skill but he doesn’t inspire or lead them. Eijun on the other hand, could easily grow into that role because he is a good communicator, people respond to him, he is motivated (like Yuki), he inspires others, and his mood is infectious. To me, he is perfect captain material. Call me odd, but to me, a more compelling story for Eijun would be learning that being the ace isn’t as important as being a team member. Let me explain why. To Furuya, who was isolated both geographically and socially from good baseball players to play with (seriously though, why didn’t Komadai scout him?) his journey is one of learning to trust and be trusted, be part of a team, and open up socially. To achieve that, he needs the ace designation to feel trusted. I’ve read comments that say that his previous team shunning him isn’t that bad and he is a whiner about it, which fine if you think that, however I’ll offer up that from flashbacks with his grandfather, we see that baseball was the first and probably only way he was able to make social connections with people. Remember his grandfather calls him out for always standing apart and waiting to be invited, same way Miyuki did. So baseball gave him a means to socially interact in a way that was comfortable to him then his team decides they won’t play with him anymore, removing his one social outlet. Now it would be different, if he was shown to not care about being included, like Miyuki, however he is shown wanting to be part of a group but not knowing how to make that happen, so when he made moves like asking his team to play with him, they responded by calling him “monster.” In my opinion, that could seriously screw someone up. It can’t help that the only time we ever see his current teammates talking to him other than when Miyuki tricked him and Eijun during Summer camp (he was very happy to get to be included), is after he has made a good pitch (inadvertently probably making him more insecure about losing the mound because without he has no connection to them). Miyuki is the only one that seems to have actual conversations with him. The end state of Furuya’s journey is to understand the give and take of friendship and teammates on and off the mound. How to take a step without waiting to be invited. If he weren’t the ace, it is likely they would never interact with him. Furuya needs the ace number to feel secure enough to grow and start his journey towards being social (though I can’t tell if he is supposed to be introverted, socially awkward, socially anxious, shy or have aspergers). Eijun on the other hand has a different journey. His is more about growing up and coming into his own as a person and a pitcher. Part of that is learning how to pitch and trust himself (the one type of trust that Furuya actually has). But to me part of it is also realizing where he fits in within a team of equals. He has been on teams and always been the ace and the leader, plus the best player (much like Furuya, his previous team had issues catching his pitches but they stuck by him because of his charisma and being a good person, which are both traits that Furuya lacks). He is used to being the star and he needs to learn how to deal with victories and losses being for the team, not him. His attachment to the ace number to me is an immature attachment, “I’ll be the ace of all aces” or basically, “I want it because I want it.” He needs to learn that you can be a leader, and a player without wearing the number 1. To me Eijun wants the ace number but won’t start to grow until he understands it isn’t what is most important. From a narrative perspective, he wants it but Furuya needs it. I think making him the captain would teach him the true importance of being part of a team rather than wanting to be the star. I’m probably way off base but I can dream, can’t I? >;P